31–40 of 119 posts
Natural language acquisition is kind of a special case here, in that you are actually wired to do this one from scratch.
You gotta do both. Research, analyze, digest, and then execute. With time, you can reduce the duration of the cycle. Taking the first step often requires a lot of research and thinking, and then a lot of execution to go from zero to one. Then, iterate, with shorter cycles. Failing to think is as much a problem as failing to execute, you have to balance it.
> Taking the first step often requires a lot of research and thinking I generally agree with your comment, but strongly disagree with this part. You will have much more success if you take this first step as soon as possible. No research, no thinking. And a “real thing” first step. You want to start running? Put on some shoes and go for a run. Don’t sign up for a race, don’t look up running tips, don’t buy nice shoes…
I did that, went for a run every day, overexerted my ankle, couldn't walk normally for a week and couldn't run for weeks after that, and got out of the habit of running again for a very long time.
Your advice might work in specific cases for specific people, but for others it might be harmful. It is, in my opinion, not advice fit for "broadcast": you need to know the recipient and their situation to know whether the advice will not be harmful for them.
This kind of writing makes me upset. * It's really self-important. Not only is it selling you on a particular strategy for attaining success, it also tries to sell success in things like public speaking and doing architectural work as an absolutely important part of one's life, and that implicitly a person's existence is invalidated if they aren't constantly trying to achieve this kind of success. It doesn't do it ex…
As for you second point, what kind of proof do you need? Do you want scientific studies that dive way too deep into specifics and are not applicable to real life? This article is targeted towards learning, which varies heavily from person to person and can be very subjective. Think about it from your perspective and see if the ideas apply to what you do. Simple as that.
For your third point, yeah sure real and fake are pretty subjective. In the end it's obviously up to you to decide or come to a decision about what is and what isn't. Our gut instinct usually fails here thought...
However, to address the point about learning Japanese, I would argue that taking the time to learn before doing so is the "fake" way. How do children learn a language if they can't use a computer or phone to get on Duolingo or go to a community college to take a course? They literally just are exposed to it and pick it up over time.
People may not know his background but he is a prominent figure when it comes to language learning and his strategies are to replicate natural learning methods and ignore the canned courses like Duolingo that don't do you any good...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking the first step often requires a lot of research and thinking I generally agree with your comment, but strongly disagree with this part. You will have much more success if you take this first step as soon as possible. No research, no thinking. And a “real thing” first step. You want to start running? Put on some shoes and go for a run. Don’t sign up for a race, don’t look up running tips, don’t buy nice shoes…
> You want to start running? Put on some shoes and go for a run. I did that, went for a run every day, overexerted my ankle, couldn't walk normally for a week and couldn't run for weeks after that, and got out of the habit of running again for a very long time. Your advice might work in specific cases for specific people, but for others it might be harmful. It is, in my opinion, not advice fit for "broadcast": you ne…
He never says in the article to keep doing something even if it is painful. If you went for a run and experienced pain, I think it would be safe to start trying to stretch or figure out why this happens.
This is still compatible with the method he recommends here.
When I do attempt to sing, my mind's ear says I'm way off (even when I've never heard the hymn before). I'm not hitting the notes. So now I need to learn solfège and music intervals.
Doing the "real thing" requires having the tools and basic skillset first. I suggest the opposite of this article: break the goal down into manageable parts and work the periphery. Get some small wins. Then you can realistically take on the "real thing". There may be no other way.
As with all good advice, this reads well and makes sense but the devil is in the details. > Eric Barone, who went on to sell millions of copies of his game, overcame his struggles at creating art by making and remaking the art assets for his game dozens of times. To someone else, frigging around with their art assets and remaking then over and over again could be the very definition of not doing "the real thing".
If someone else had no trouble creating art then this situation simply doesn't apply to them. That person might have a different part of the process that gives them trouble that they SHOULD be practicing.
For Eric, practicing the thing he had trouble with over and over was the best way for him to get over his struggles. Now he can move onto the next thing he needs to work on and continue to make progress.
Possibly an over-simplification. Take this example: I want to sight-sing hymns. I know a bit of music theory but it's been cobbled together over the past year in an haphazard fashion. I pick up a hymnal to sing the first hymn and immediately need to look up the key signature (I never memorized them). Then I see the hymn is 12/8 time and realize I only superficially covered rhythm and time signatures. I go on YouTube…
I find it is a lot easier to learn in the pursuit of something I actually want to accomplish rather than studying in a vacuum.
So your approach, for example, is better than if you had just picked up a book on key and time signatures and started reading. You first tried to do something, ran into something you didn't know, so started to learn that thing.
Definitely agree with the article, and would like to offer a useful supplement to "doing the real thing": "watch someone very skilled do the real thing". Watching a pro can really accelerate skill acquisition because it will expose you to high quality ideas that would have been difficult to develop on your own. Want to get better at Backgammon/Chess/Go? Play a lot of games (at various time controls). Yes. But also wa…
Just watching someone doing the real thing is one of the most prominent strategies to avoid doing the real thing. It is not enough to watch someone very skilled do the real thing. You have to imitate them: Reading a lot of great novels will not make you a better writer. Instead write a story in the style of any writer you admire and you will learn a lot while still doing the real thing. The same is true for almost an…
“A good diet is essential, of course, as is a daily regime of exercise. Pay attention to your footwork, it will often get you into trouble. Go down to the gym every day – every day of your life that finds you waking up capable of standing. Take every opportunity to watch a good professional fight. In fact watch as many bouts as you can, because you can even learn something from the fighters who get it wrong. Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do. And don’t forget the diet and the exercise and the roadwork.
Got it? Well, becoming a writer is basically exactly the same thing, except that it isn’t about boxing.”
This is the kind of advice that, for one person, might be exactly what they need, and for another it might be the exact opposite of what they need. For example, Christopher McCandless dove head-first into the real thing (that is, surviving without help in the Alaskan wilderness), without proper preparation and training, and died. He didn't have to, he could have built up to it gradually by training various survival s…
He didn't go straight from normal life to Alaskan wilderness though. He spent a good bit of time traveling and being homeless. If anything, he was in the uncanny valley of being skilled at most aspects of living in the wildnerness, but unaware of the specifics of being in Alaska and how the environment would change between seasons.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taking the first step often requires a lot of research and thinking I generally agree with your comment, but strongly disagree with this part. You will have much more success if you take this first step as soon as possible. No research, no thinking. And a “real thing” first step. You want to start running? Put on some shoes and go for a run. Don’t sign up for a race, don’t look up running tips, don’t buy nice shoes…
> You want to start running? Put on some shoes and go for a run. I did that, went for a run every day, overexerted my ankle, couldn't walk normally for a week and couldn't run for weeks after that, and got out of the habit of running again for a very long time. Your advice might work in specific cases for specific people, but for others it might be harmful. It is, in my opinion, not advice fit for "broadcast": you ne…
It shouldn’t even be a long one. I said “go run for a bit”. If it hurts at all, stop. Don’t do things that you think are dangerous. If you can’t run or aren’t sure if you should, then just walk. Maybe I should refine my advice to “do whatever is closest to the ultimate thing, that you can safely do right now”.